Omega Dog (8 page)

‘I know, boss.’

Rosetti was silent a moment, staring at Infante. Then she held out her hand across the desk. ‘Give me that.’

‘Boss –’ Infante stepped forward, but hesitated.

‘What?’

‘Royle said to tell you he won’t speak to you, or anyone else associated with you, till he’s got the job done.’

‘What? He can’t do that. I decide who fuckin’ speaks to me and who doesn’t.’ Once again Rosetti silently cursed her crippled legs for not allowing her to stand up and tower over the desk.

Infante shrugged apologetically. ‘I’ve tried calling him back, boss. He doesn’t answer. He just said he wanted to let us know there’d been a hitch, but he’s working on it. He also said that if you’ve put someone else in the field to compete with him, he’s going to kill them along with the target.’

‘Son of a –’ Rosetti held out her hand again. ‘Gimme the phone.’

‘Boss –’ She knew he knew what was coming.

‘
Give it to me, dammit!
’

Wordlessly, Infante handed the cell phone across the desk to her. Rosetti took it, hefted its weight.

Then she hurled it at Infante’s head.

He ducked, but too late. The phone caught his forehead with a crack and he yelled and stumbled back. The phone flew in pieces across the carpeted floor. Infante held his hands up to his forehead. They came away bloody.

Anybody who didn’t know Rosetti might have said:
don’t shoot the messenger
. But anybody who
did
know her would understand.

When you worked for DeeDee Rosetti, you accepted you could get shot at any time, and for any reason. Or have a full ashtray dumped over your head. Or a cigarette stubbed out on the back of your hand.

It was an occupational hazard, a risk you took in exchange for the privilege of being part of the most prestigious crime family in New York City.

‘Get the fuck out!’ Rosetti raged at Infante.

He went.

Alone, Rosetti alternated between drags on her unfiltered Camel and bites of her nails. She was angry, all right. But she was also calculating.

How could a civilian, a simple doctor, and a woman at that, have gotten away from a professional assassin of Marcus Royle’s caliber?

Either she’d been tipped off, or someone had helped her somehow. But what did that mean?

And what had Royle meant when he’d said that if Rosetti had put someone else in the field to compete with him, he’d kill them too?

Had he come into conflict with some unknown person?

Rosetti knuckled her forehead in frustration. Without hearing Royle’s account of what happened, she had no way of knowing. She couldn’t even call him in, cancel the deal and hire somebody more competent to do the job, because she had no way of contacting him now.

Unless...

Rosetti sat bolt upright in her wheelchair, a move that never failed to send stabs of pain down her arthritic neck. She had an idea.

And ironically, Royle himself had given it to her.

She’d never tried it before. Had always sent only one assassin into the field at a time.

But there was no reason why she shouldn’t hire somebody else, even if she couldn’t call Royle off. After all, she’d only end up having to pay one person. Only one of them would get to the girl first.

Humming tunelessly around the cigarette jammed between her lips, as she always did when she was pleased with herself, Rosetti picked up the phone.

––––––––

B
eth ran.

She ran as fast as the pumps she was wearing allowed, which wasn’t fast at all. But the alternative, running in her bare feet, wasn’t an option. These were city streets, and she’d cut her soles to ribbons in no time.

The familiar streets and sounds and sights around her apartment block took on a new, terrifying air of menace. Suddenly every passerby posed a threat, every building loomed monstrously into her path. Every blaring car horn yelled aggression at her.

Terror drove Beth on. The primal, instinctive need to put as much distance as she could between her and the source of danger.

Between her and the man –
men
– who were trying to kill her.

Beth had put up with her fair share of abuse and violent behavior, as all doctors did. She’d been punched in the face before, by an alcoholic going through the DTs. She’d been half-throttled by a criminal on the run who’d tried to escape from the ward when the cops arrived.

But in all of these cases, it hadn’t been personal. Beth just happened to be in the way of someone who needed to lash out randomly, for one reason or another.

Nobody had ever deliberately tried to kill her before.

Right up until the man had come bursting through into the bathroom, she hadn’t really believed it. Even as she was dragging herself painfully through the narrow window space, hanging onto the fire escape which all of a sudden seemed terrifyingly high above the ground, some part of her mind refused to grasp the fact that somebody was actually trying to end her life. Had in all probability killed poor Herman down in the lobby, and was now going to do the same to her.

The she’d glanced back over her shoulder as her arms took the strain of her weight, and she saw him.

He was at first little more than a silhouette against the faint light from back inside the apartment. From what Beth could see from her awkward position, suspended from the metal latticework, he was tall, with a full head of hair. Quite lean in his build.

And he held a gun, pointed straight at her.

That was when she screamed. And that was when she became aware of the
other
man, below her, also armed.

Events after that became a blur of panic and confusion. The men both started firing, the exchange shockingly loud, the echoes of the crashing guns bouncing off the walls lining the street. Somehow, on autopilot, Beth managed to clamber down the fire escape and not get hit, even as the bullets sang and whined about her.

She’d dropped, twisting her ankle sharply (but, her doctor’s detached eye noted, not breaking it), and somehow in her pain and terror she retained the presence of mind to grapple inside her purse and close her fingers round the can of Mace, even as the second man crawled across to her.

As she let loose with the Mace, she caught a glimpse of his face. Hard, twisting in surprise and agony, with dark eyes and a neat goatee and mustache. A big guy, not stocky but sinewy and rangy. Then he collapsed back, hands clasped to his burning eyes, writhing.

And she was free, and running, sucking in great lungfuls of the night city’s air.

Dimly she registered that she was heading west, toward the Hudson River. Was that wise? But was anywhere safe?

She had no idea who was after her, or how many of them there were. Or why they wanted her dead.

Something to do with Professor Lomax? It must be. But she couldn’t figure out what.

And now wasn’t the time to do so. What mattered now was survival.

Rely on instinct now. Figure things out later.

Looming ahead of Beth, like a beacon in the night, she saw the familiar insignia of the New York Police Department over an arched doorway.

A precinct house.

Almost faltering, sobbing drily with relief, Beth forced her legs to take her the last few paces to the steps leading up to the station house doors. She stumbled on the steps, felt them crack painfully against her shins. The discomfort drove her on, and she dragged herself up to the glass doors and pushed them open.

––––––––

‘F
rom the beginning again, please, miss.’

Beth gripped the Styrofoam cup as tightly as she dared without causing it to collapse, the lukewarm coffee inside threatening to slop over the edge. She glared at the two cops.

Again?
she thought wearily
. For the
third
time?

She’d blurted out her story in fragments to the desk sergeant, who’d been sympathetic but had difficulty following what she was saying. Beth didn’t blame him, because she wasn’t making a whole lot of sense to herself either. She’d allowed the sergeant to lead her to a side room, where he brought her a little water and asked her to wait. She sat, sipping gratefully, but with every minute that passed she became increasingly nervous.

What if the two men had tailed her to the precinct house? What if they came in, posing as staff from a psychiatric ward, there to recover their escaped patient and take her back to safekeeping? Would the cops simply hand her over?

Telling herself she was letting her imagination run riot didn’t make it any easier for Beth.

After what seemed like an hour but was probably only fifteen minutes, a uniformed policewoman came in and escorted Beth to an interview room. The woman was blocky and tough-looking, with a swagger that said she was making a point in a man’s world, but she had a kind manner.

She explained that a pair of detectives would be along in just a minute to take her statement. “Just a minute” turned out to be a half hour. The detectives, two tired-looking older guys who looked like they’d been assigned the night shift and weren’t too happy about it, took down her more or less coherent statement with barely a word.

Then they left, and Beth sat with the uniformed female cop once more. The woman didn’t seem inclined to make small talk.

Finally, after another forty-five minutes, two new plainclothes people came in. They nodded at the uniformed cop and signaled her to leave. She did so, giving Beth a reassuring smile on her way out.

The new detectives were younger than the first two. One woman, one man. The woman introduced herself as Detective Anderson. She was small, petite, maybe a little over five feet one or -two. Short blonde hair in a pixie cut, the look enhanced by an enormous pair of green eyes.

‘Detective Gomez,’ said the man. He was maybe thirty-five. A craggy, pockmarked face that looked like a bomb had gone off in it. Grim mouth, hooded, hawklike eyes.

That was when they asked her to recite her story again.

‘Where are the other two detectives?’ Beth asked. ‘The ones who I spoke to nearly an hour ago? I told them everything.’ She tried to keep the tremor out of her voice. Delayed shock was setting in as the adrenalin ebbed from her system, leaving her feeling washed-out and fragile.

‘We know, miss,’ said Gomez, in a voice that sounded like a rake being dragged through a bed of gravel. ‘But we’re from across town. We’re investigating a Missing Person case and we think you might be able to shed some light on it.’

Beth frowned from one to the other, confused. The woman detective, Anderson, was by far the more sympathetic of the two. She smiled warmly at Beth, nodding slightly as if to say she understood how scared and bewildered she must be feeling right now.

‘Ms...
Colby
, right? May I call you Elizabeth?’

‘Beth.’

‘Beth. Right.’ The woman smiled again. ‘I’m Shelly, by the way. As my partner says, we’re part of the Missing Persons unit over on the East Side. We’re investigating the disappearance three days ago of Professor Leonard Lomax.’

‘Prof Lomax? He’s disappeared?’ Though she’d already guessed something wasn’t right with the Prof, Beth still felt a stab of alarm to hear it said out loud.

‘Yeah,’ said Gomez. ‘When did you last see or speak to him?’

Anderson shot him a look, as if to reproach him for being so blunt. To Beth she said, ‘You told the detectives earlier that you’d tried to phone Professor Lomax at his home, and a strange man answered. Right?’

‘Right.’

‘You’re quite positive it wasn’t the professor?’

‘Absolutely.’ Beth spoke with confidence. ‘I’ve known the Prof for over ten years. I’d recognize his voice anywhere. This was a younger man. Maybe in his thirties.’

‘And when did you see the professor last?’ asked Anderson.

Beth thought about it. ‘I met him... maybe six weeks ago.’

‘As long as that?’

‘Yes. We’re collaborating together on a research project, but a lot of the time we talk on the phone, or communicate by email. He’s busy, I’m busy. We were scheduled to meet tomorrow, though, to go over some of our work together.’

‘When did you last speak to him, or exchange emails?’

Again Beth considered. ‘That must have been two weeks ago. Yes, that’s right. I emailed him with a query about something, and he answered.’

‘Did he seem okay?’ asked Gomez. ‘Preoccupied in some way? Or scared?’

‘Not that I can recall,’ said Beth. ‘But it’s hard to tell from an email, you know? It was just about work-related matters, nothing more.’ She frowned, a thought occurring to her suddenly. ‘You said he disappeared three days ago?’

‘Yes,’ said Gomez. ‘Didn’t turn up for work. Colleagues tried to get hold of him but he wasn’t home, or answering his calls. We checked his house. No sign of him. Bu no sign of any break-in or foul play, either.’

‘But the university must have a database of work he’s involved in, people he’s collaborating with,’ said Beth. ‘My name would have come up. Why haven’t you already interviewed me to see if I had any idea where he was?’

She caught Anderson’s glance at Gomez, who shook his head.

‘What?’ said Beth.

Anderson seemed to debate with herself, then she said, ‘Look, Beth. We’ll need you to go over your story again. But we might as well come clean with you.’

‘Shel,’ Gomez growled. Anderson ignored him.

She went on: ‘We’ve been pulled off the case. Not just us, the whole department. Somebody else, the Feds or someone, has taken over. And we don’t like it. So we’re staying involved, Mike –’ she indicated Gomez with a thumb, ‘and I.’

––––––––

V
enn found an all-night internet café off Columbus and took a booth where he could watch the door. He didn’t think he’d been followed, but there was no point in taking any chances.

On the way in he bought a large coffee and a bottle of mineral water. The clerk served him with indifference. Venn supposed he looked like any of a number of denizens of the night, with his bleary, bloodshot eyes suggesting alcohol or drug problems.